Police called to a flat in Berlin by neighbours who said it sounded like someone was using an electric drill through the night smashed down the door to find a vibrator had switched itself on and was jiggling around on the floor.

But they could not get a response, and eventually decided to break in the door in an attempt to find out what was going on in the flat. “You could hear the noise out on the street,” one neighbour said.

When the officers smashed their way into the flat they found nothing more dangerous than the vibrator which was doing its best on the floor. Now the young woman is not only going to have to face her neighbours when she returns home – she will also have to pay for the smashed door.